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American History 



IN 



Afflerican Schools, Colleges, and Universities. 



BY 

FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE, Ph.D., 

Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania. 



^REPRINT FROM "EDUCATION.") 
1 886. 






IN JUSTICE TO THE NATION. 



BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE, PH. D., 
Fellow in Political Science, University of Pennsylvania. 



WHEN the people of the United States realized that they 
were a nation, they began to study their own history. 
Lincoln, speaking to a generation in arras for this national- 
ity, said, " We are making history very fast." Before the war, 
our history was little studied in the West ; in the East and the 
South attention was chiefly given to colonial and local history. 
But during the national and international changes incident to 
the events of 1865, our history assumed a character of its own ; 
and the study of it was begun in a few higher institutions of 
learning. 

The Nation had begun a new era ; production was stimulated ; 
interstate commerce fostered ; immigration encouraged ; states 
founded ; hostile institutions swept away ; inventions in the arts, 
in the sciences, in the means of enjoying life perfected. The whole 
country became intensely active in the promotion of every inter- 
est, and material progress was phenomenal. The effect continues 
to this day. It is seen on every hand, — in the life at the univer- 
sity, in the noisy life of the street. Our national life and our 
individual lives, both practically and sentimentally, show the 
effects of that mighty convulsion in the state which, a quarter 
of a century ago, ended the old era and ushered in the new. 



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The Nation is a moral person ; its history is that of organic 
development. We are not first nor last ; we come in the moral 
order of the world. There is, in the process of history, " an 
organic unity of the Divine idea ; and it holds a purpose in and 
through, and uniting the ages. . . . Thus it has been said, ' The 
history of the world cannot be understood apart from the gov- 
ernment of the world.' " 

Bancroft and Hildreth are our historians ; but our history is 
yet to be written. The revival of historical studies in our gener- 
ation is a step forward, and toward that consummation, — the pro- 
duction of a complete history of America. Documentary his- 
tory is tedious ; statistics are not men in action ; the record of 
the pulse is not the pulse. We have neglected the study of our 
institutions. Politics, as commonly understood, form only a part 
of our interests. With what delight has the History of the Peo- 
ple of the United States, by McMaster, been read by his country- 
men ; and it is written from material gathered from a long neg- 
lected source. The study of American economics is changing 
ourhistorical perspective. The least has become the greatest ; 
the neglected has become interesting. The useless as it was 
becomes the useful as it is. Our various American life demands 
not merely some new thing, but things. We seek, like Bacon, 
for " fruit." Economics is a general expression, in the vocabu- 
lary of our investigators, of the causes of the wealth of nations, 
and signifies all that makes for material progress in the affairs of 
the nation. It includes our industries as such, and, on the other 
hand, is allied to that study of mind which teaches us to look 
back of the machine to its Maker for the best source of knowl- 
edge, concerning the machine. Economics connect, as a scien- 
tific study, ethics and physics or mechanics. Our industrial 
history is as old as our political or our financial ; but it is not so 
well understood. 

Economics have been so theoretically studied and so theoret- 
ically presented that they have not gained, at the hands of our 
political economists, the confidence of the people. We are not 
a people tolerant toward theorists, although we build theories for 
everything which we do not take time to investigate. We are a 
very practical people, but, as must be the case, also a people 
much given to theorizing. Perhaps the best indication of the 
revival of economical studies from the dead past of pure specu- 



(5) 

lation is the founding of the American Economic Association 
which, as an association of the younger and many of the older 
economists of the country, purposes to base doctrine upon facts, 
and facts upon such a careful study of economic elements as will 
bear such economic fruit that the people may eat thereof and 
become wiser. A system of economics which begins a priori, 
and ends as it begins, has little to commend itself, and can effect 
nothing for the clearing away of such difificulties as strikes, or 
any of the causes which produce strikes. But economics, like 
history, has, as a science, a new birth now ; and arm in arm the 
student of one with the student of the other walks in the same 
path, — the course of the nation, — its highway ; and each gathers 
there the fruit that has long been ripening. It may be said that 
these two studies, history and economics, are the ifnportant ones 
in the education of every American youth ; one pertains to the 
past, the other looks toward the future ; together they mirror the 
life of the nation. As the nation ages, its opinions concerning 
itself change. It desires to view itself from many points ; it 
seeks to know its daily life, its institutions, — their origin and 
their nature. Above all, it desires to understand its present 
interests, economic, political, ethical. To history and economics 
must be added biology, as the third study of our day. Biology 
is the study of life in action ; instructural investigations laid 
bare. The methods of investigation in each of these studies are 
the same in principle. 

In more than two hundred and fifty of our universities and 
colleges, the study of American history is confined to the study 
of one textbook. This has gone so far in our public schools 
that one text-book, pushed into the school by some energetic 
publisher, has maintained its place, though later and better 
books are now accessible. An examination of the ordinary text 
of American history shows that about one-third of the book 
is devoted to pictures, about two -thirds to American history 
before 1789, and the remainder to the history of the United 
States ; few maps are inserted, and these are too often inaccu- 
rate and useless. In this brief treatment of the history of this 
nation social history is omitted ; the text is chronology, or poli- 
tics so-called. 

In our public schools, American history should not be taught 
to load the memorv of children with the barren records of elec- 



(6) 

tions, defeats, and martial deeds. Every American who becomes 
a true citizen enters upon responsibilities which he should have 
opportunity to study before assuming them. This is the just 
claim for having our history studied in the public schools. That 
study should be at first chiefly geographical and sociological. 
The child should be able to see from consecutive maps how the 
nation has grown and has spread its power over this continent ; 
he should be taught the social development of this people ; how 
they have founded states, built highways, railroads, canals, steam- 
ship lines ; how our commerce has grown and why it has grown ; 
what we require to support ourselves, and where and how we 
raise it ; what is the nature of our manufactures, and what the 
condition and relations between employer and employee. Above 
all, the child should be taught the homely facts of history as they 
are about him. The town is the first subject for study ; then 
the township, the city, the county, the state, the nation. It is a 
just criticism, that m the public schools we learned nothing of 
this ; we learned nothing of the nature of the ordinary civil 
offices. 

A child of ten years could understand the nature of the duties 
of auditor, assessor, tax-collector, council, mayor. There is no 
a locality in which the child may not collect material for local 
history, and thus form a foundation for the study of the commu- 
nity and the state. If all teachers who attempt to instruct in 
American history could understand that our history exists out- 
side of Harrisburgh and Washington, and would teach children 
what children most need to know, and would develop the life of 
the nation, historically, ia the mind of the child, our history 
would live in and with the child, and his knowledge of it would 
be a conscious power working for his happiness. 

The introduction of the study of American history into the 
public schools resulted in the requirement of some knowledge of 
it from those coming up to college. The book usually designated 
by the faculty is one of " essentials," which the boy, by a process 
of mental cramming peculiar to candidates, carries loosely in his 
memory till he has unloaded himself in an entrance examination. 
If he fails, he is not conditioned, because there is no way of 
removing the condition ; if he passes, he straightway forgets his 
information, and usually never takes American History again. 
A condition in ancient or in modern European history is a real- 



(7) 

ity, and can only be removed by such systematic coaching as will 
satisfy a learned professor. The boy entering college is not 
obliged to know the outlines of the history of his own country, 
but he is obliged to know the outlines of the history of Europe. 
The reasons for examining a boy in European history for admis- 
sion to college apply equally to American history ; there should 
be an intelligent study of our own history in our public schools, 
in our college preparatory schools, and an examination that is 
not a college fiction for entrance into college. 

In our public and private preparatory schools American his- 
tory is not taught, on the average, above five recitations a week, 
not to exceed thirty minutes a lesson ; and the total amount of 
this study averages not over six months in the school life of 
the child. In some town and city schools it is pursued by 
a few pupils in the high schools for one year ; but this is 
usually in connection with the so-called general history course. 
There are no special teachers of American institutions in Amer- 
ican schools below the university, and few universities have such 
teachers. In the preparatory schools the prevailing method of 
instruction is as follows : The teacher assigns a fixed number of 
pages in the text-book to be memorized ; pupils repeat text-book 
in recitation ; they are examined in text-book and the subject 
is dropped, and usually willingly. This method (i-zV) prevails in 
large cities and in crowded schools, and is the sine qua non of 
every teacher ( ! ! ) who is compelled to hear lessons which he 
does not understand. It does not permit the use of different 
texts, because the teacher is required to get his pupils past a 
dreaded examination : for if a certain minimum is not passed, 
the school board employs a new teacher ( ! ! ) to hear the les- 
sons. The result is that thousands pass from these schools with 
a brief mental encumbrance of names, dates, and events, — mere 
baggage. In later life it proves its worthlessness and is cast 
away, and the man knows that the public school did him more 
harm than good, so far as it tried to teach him American history. 

In other schools, of similar grade, no text-book is used. The 
teacher talks, and pupils take notes. The teacher is not a spe- 
cial student of history. He talks text-book on a small scale. 
The notes of pupils are disconnected statements swept together 
into a "table," which is to be memorized. The recita*"' is the 
" story," after the teacher, and with unique variations by th 



(8) 

child. The teacher abbreviates the text-book, which abbreviates 
the larger work. The child abbreviates the teacher. The results 
are, a meager amount of disconnected facts, and a certain uncer- 
tainty in the mind of the pupil that leaves him conscious only of 
his ignorance. In college the talk becomes a lecture ; but the 
conditions under which it is given are too often similar to those 
in the preparatory school. 

Few public schools have libraries ; and fewer, a collection of 
historical books. In our own history there is rarely a single book. 
Some teachers, at times, read to their classes selections from 
standard writers. This is rare ; time and the course forbid it. 
The extract is only the expansion of a single line, and other 
lines are equally important. In rare instances the teacher, 
though not specially trained in history, is fond of it, and is then 
in danger of public criticism for not preferring arithmetic. He 
gathers a few war histories, biographies, and text-books sent him 
by careful publishers, and with these not ineffective tools he suc- 
ceeds in teaching a few facts, though the principal one is that 
the books do not agree. 

In some schools, — and they are few in number, — whose classes 
have access to public and private libraries, the teacher prescribes 
readings from standard authors. Pupils report these orally, or by 
brief quotations or digests of authors read. Usually there are 
not enough copies of the prescribed books in the library for each 
member of the class. Thus the reading is done by a few who 
take special interest. Sometimes, to avoid this, the class is 
divided into committees that work up separate subjects and 
report results to the entire class. At stated times the teacher 
meets his class, and the results are worked together into a whole. 
The work is supplemented by the teacher with informal lectures. 
This is the first step in our preparatory schools toward the his- 
torical seminary. Children, thus taught, acquire a few ideas of 
American history which will stand the test of truth and the trial 
of time. In later life it proves to have been an intelligent intro- 
duction to a knowledge of American institutions. 

These three methods, — the text-book, the "story," and the 
seminary, — represent the methods now in use in our preparatory 
schools. Incidental to them, but found only in the third, are, 
class debates ; reading of historical tales and poems ; making of 
maps on paper, in clay relief, in colors; the collecting of relics 



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and curiosities ; seeing plays acted ; visiting museums and 
places of historic interest, and hearing lectures pertaining to the 
subject. 

Of the pupils in the public schools eighty per cent, never 
reach the high school, and ninety-five per cent, never reach col- 
lege. Of those who enter college more than twenty-five per 
cent, never take a degree, and usually drop out before the junior 
class. After a somewhat careful examination of the subject, the 
conclusion is forced upon us, that in these schools for elecnentary 
instruction the study of American history, as at present con- 
ducted, is, with few exceptions, time wasted, money wasted, 
energy wasted, history perverted, and intelligent elementary 
knowledge of the subject stifled It is merely mechanical, and 
such a manufacturing of opinion by mere text-books that it is 
productive only of aversion to calm and unprejudiced examina- 
tion of our institutions. We are sensitive on the subject of our 
public schools. They are " the people's university." and we 
boast of them to foreigners and neglect them ourselves. Educa- 
tion is yet an affair of brick and mortar. Teachers and scholars 
are turned into costly buildings, often elegant in design, and usu- 
ally lacking every kind of apparatus for tne prosecution of the 
work of education. The " system " is left to run itself. Little 
is known of these schools till, later in life, the pupil knows that 
he learned very little in them of value to him. The little teach- 
ing of American history in them is too often of a petty political 
nature, — a mere brief of elections, administrations, wars, and 
victories. But the real life of the people, as it is or has been, is 
not taught. The children know as little of the development of 
our institutions, when they leave school, as do the inhabitants of 
Lapland. The assertion that man is a political being is a plain 
statement, to most people, during a presidential compaign ; but 
that men are political beings when no election is at hand means 
nothing to them. When it is known that our school population 
is 16,243,832, of which only 6,118,331 are in actual daily attend- 
ance ; that among 293,294 public teachers not one is for Amer- 
ican institutions ; that the children of the country remain in 
school, on an average, not over three years and a half ; that only 
about one-fifth of those in the preparatory schools reach the high 
school, only one-sixth the college ; that only one-fourth of this 
number complete a college course ; that sixty per cent, of the 
pupils in our schools are females, and that it is rare to find in them 



( lo) 

a boy of eighteen years, the question becomes an important one 
whether our system of public education does what it ought to 
teach the children of the nation the history of our institutions 
to the end that the generation in the schools may become citi- 
zens and voters of intelligence. 

It is said, by some, that the incidental instruction from news- 
papers, magazines, books, lectures, sermons, and conversation, is 
enough for training in citizenship. It is an answer to this, that 
technical instruction is the only instruction that counts in this 
world ; general information has little, if any, value compared 
with it; everything about something, not something about every- 
thing, has been said, with much truth, to be the desideratum in 
education. The tendency of the educational work of to-day is 
toward specialization. This may be our vast error, but it is our 
vast effort. 

Of the two hundred and sixty-five universities and colleges in 
this country, the universities of Cornell and of Pennsylvania have 
professorships in American history; at Columbia, Yale, Harvard, 
Johns Hopkins, Michigan, and Wisconsin,' are courses for under 
graduates and for post-graduates. The instruction at Yale is 
chiefly in the history of New England ; but in the Law Depart- 
ment, American constitutional history is taught. 

At Columbia, American history is pursued as an elective, by the 
seniors, for four hours a week for six months, and by post-graduates 
for three hours a week for one year. The work is by means of lect- 
ures, the use of texts, — von Hoist and Bancroft, — original docu- 
ments, such as legislative records, executive reports, legal reports, 
both state and national, memoirs, pamphlets, newspapers, and 
standard authors, — all of which aid in seminary work. " After the 
casual nexus has been established," says Professor Burgess, "we 
endeavor to teach students to look for the institutions and ideas 
which have been developed through the sequence of events in 
the civilization of an age or people. This I might term the ulti- 
mate object of our entire method of historical instruction. With 
us history is the chief preparation for the study of the legal and 
political sciences ; through it we seek to find the origin, follow 
the growth, and learn the meaning of our legal, political, and 
economic principles and institutions." 

At Johns Hopkins, courses in American history are offered as 

1 No post-graduate course. 



(II) 

preparatory to the legal, editorial, or academic professions, or for 
the public service and the duties of citizenship ; there is an 
undergraduate course three hours weekly, during the second half 
of the third year. The constitutional history of the colonial and 
Revolutionary periods, together with the formation and adoption 
of the present constitution, is first studied ; then a brief series 
of lectures is devoted to the interpretation of the constitution ; 
the constitutional, and to some extent, the political history of the 
period, from that time until the close of the period of reconstruc- 
tion, is then taken up ; the course concludes with a series of lect- 
ures descriptive of the actual present form of the government 
of the United States, the government of the states, and of munic- 
ipal and local institutions. In the graduate course is the work 
of the seminary in American history and economics. Only grad 
uate students connected with the university are received as mem- 
bers of the seminary. The work of this cooperative organiza- 
tion of teachers and instructors in the department of history 
and political science is chiefly devoted to original research, in 
the fields of American institutions and American economics. 
The exercises of the seminary, which occupy two hours each 
week, consist of oral and written reports of progress, discussions 
of these, and historical reviews. The work of this seminary, 
which was a departare in the educational history of American 
institutions of learning, finds its way into magazines, and consti- 
tutes the four volumes of Studies in Political Science published 
by the university. These are now widely and favorably known, 
and have exercised a great influence in the revival of historical 
studies in this country. Of the twenty fellowships founded at 
Johns Hopkins, two are usually in history, and several of the Fel- 
lows have worked almost exclusively in American history, and 
have published monographs of singular value. 

At Cornell, American history is elective as a five hour-per-week 
study, during the junior and senior years. Besides the use of 
such texts as Von Hoist, lectures are given and original docu- 
ments are consulted. The topics to which particular attention 
is paid are : The Mound-builders and the North American Indi- 
ans ; The Alleged Pre-Columbian Discoveries, the Origin and 
Enforcement of England's Claim to North America, as against 
Competing Nations ; The Motives and Methods of English Col- 
ony-planting in America, in the 17th and i8th Centuries; The 
Development of Ideas and Institutions in American Colonies, 



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with particular reference to Religion, Education, Industry, and 
Civil PVeedom ; The Grounds of Inter-Colonial Isolation and of 
Inter-Colonial Fellowship ; The Causes and Progress of the 
Movement for Colonial Independence ; The History of the For- 
mation of the National Constitution; The History of Slavery as 
a Factor in American Politics, culminating in the Civil War of 
1861-65. " In the presentation of these topics the student is 
constantly directed to the original sources of information con- 
cerning them and to the true methods of historical inquiry." At 
Cornell special attention is given to American literature as an 
element in American history. Students have access to original 
sources of all kinds ; and, as at Columbia and Johns Hopkins, 
the number who elect this subject is increasing year by year. 
The Goldwin Smith Fellowship, in history and political science, 
affords opportunity for special work. 

At Harvard, American history is studied by freshmen and 
sophomores, each three hours a week through the year ; but it is 
taken chiefly by the juniors and seniors for the same time. Post- 
graduates have a course covering two years, with a maximum of 
six hours per week. The work is done in lectures and by the 
study at the same time of Johnston and Von Hoist. Original 
documents are freely consulted. The four courses are four 
" electives." 

([) A course in American and English political institutions, 
designed as an introduction to later courses and chiefly devoted 
to English history. 

(2) A course in colonial history, covering the period from 1492 
to 1789, showing the growth of the spirit of Union and of the 
institutions upon which the Union is based. In this are three 
hours (lectures) per week. 

(3) A course devoted to the history of the United States proper 
from 1789 to 1 861, three lectures per week. 

(4) A course designed for advanced students who are investi- 
gating the period from 1861 to the present time, two hours per week. 

If a student were to take all the American history offered, he 
would pursue the subject three hours a week for three years. A 
considerable number do, in fact, spend at least two years in such 
study, a fourth of their time each year; the larger number elect 
the third course only. American history is a popular elective, 
and there are several fellowships offered in which special work 
may be done. 



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At the University of Pennsylvania there is a special course in 
American history in the Wharton School. This school, which is 
one of the colleges in the University, aims to give a thorough 
general and professional training to young men who intend to 
engage in business, or upon whom will devolve the management 
of property, or to persons who are preparing for the legal pro- 
fession, for journalism, for an academic career, or for the public 
service. The study begins in the sophomore year two hours a 
week ; for the first year the text is Schouler, and the study is of 
a geographical and economical character. Students are trained 
to consult some original authorities. In the junior ytav Johnston 
is used as an outline three hours a week ; the seniors take up 
Bancroft's Constitution, and later, Von Hoist, four hours per week. 
The chief work of this class is the preparation of papers from 
time to time from original authorities on the leading questions 
that have come before the American people. The post-graduate 
courses cover two years, with no limit of hours, in American 
History, and, in 1885, the University founded six fellowships, 
known as the Wharton Fellowships, in American History and 
Economics. As at Harvard and at Columbia, courses of lect- 
ures in American constitutional law are open in the law de- 
partment to special and graduate students in American History. 
The feature of the work at Pennsylvania is the high place 
given to the study of original authorities over formal his- 
tories ; these latter are considered in their true value, but 
students are required to consult original papers when possible 
rather than these histories. By original documents is meant, — 
the annals, debates, records, journals, reports, and publications 
of Congress ; judicial reports, both State and Federal ; pamphlets, 
newspapers, executive documents and texts of treaties. More 
time is given to the study of American History and Economics 
at Pennsylvania than at any other university in this country. 
Besides this above indicated, the juniors have American Institu- 
tional History three hours a week during the first half of the year 
and two hours a week during the second half ; the seniors have, 
also, in addition to that mentioned, one hour per week in Amer- 
ican Financial History, and two hours a week in American Eco- 
nomic History through the year. In all, the work in American 
History and Economics covers four and three-fourths hours a 
week for four years exclusive of the post-graduate work or of the 



(14) 

lectures in American constitutional law in the law department. 
At Pennsylvania American History and Economics are required ; 
but the results both at Harvard and at Pennsylvania show that 
the work in the two universities proceeds by common principles 
along a common course. In the work in American History and 
Economics at Pennsylvania during the past year a new feature 
has been the college congress, consisting of two houses with 
their various officers and committees before whom and by whom 
the work of the department has been assigned, discussed, studied, 
reported, and learned. The professor of American History has 
controlled the procedure of this embryonic legislative study and 
work, and the result of the experiment proves that this means of 
studying our institutions has its value. 

The work in American History at Harvard under Dr. Albert 
Bushnell Hart, and at Pennsylvania under the direction of the 
historian, John Bach McMaster, proceeds, to use the language of 
Von Ranke, "to tell just how things came about." History is 
the development of the life of the nation. It does not begin, as 
taught there, by assuming to know just how things came about ; 
history is not forced into an empiricism ; its own mirror it holds 
up to the organic life of the nation and the historian, and the 
student of history must tell of that life as he sees it, and not 
merely as he desires to see it. The people are greater than the 
camp, and the mind of the people than the mind of its legislators. 
However vain and idle that thought, it has influenced our insti- 
tutions. At Harvard and at Pennsylvania the student, as he 
pursues his course in American History, has put into his hand 
a set of outlines for his guidance ; those by Dr. Hart are pub- 
lished ; those by Prof. McMaster are in manuscript. As an index 
to the work attempted in these two universities we give a brief 
account of the Harvard plan. It may be said to represent the 
best attempts now making in our schools in the study of Amer- 
ican institutions, and is substantially an outline of the courses 
and the work at Columbia, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins. 

Dr. Hart's outlines are used during the lecture by the student 
as an analysis for him of the subject under consideration, and as 
an aid to him in his readings. Three sets of these are given : 
general, required, and detailed. Every student is expected to 
make himself familiar with the first and second. The outlines 
enter into the subject so as to bring before the student the polit- 



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ical, economical, financial, physical, and legal history of the Amer- 
ican people. The courses aim to present the whole life of the 
nation. For instance, in studying the period from 1750 to 1789, 
the period when the colonies separated from England, for a gen- 
eral view the reference is to Doyle's Hisio?y of the United States, 
202-284, and to Story s Commentaries on tJie Constitution Sections, 
198-305, — in all 150 pp. 

There are five lectures on the period 1750-1755, taking up the 
Constitution of England and of the colonies. The required read- 
ings are, — Bancroft (10 vol. edition), V. 32-78 (95 pp.) ; Green, 
— History of the English People, IV. 166-171, 197-200 (40 pp.) ; 
May, — Constitutional History of England, II. 510-546, Ch. XVII. 
(35 PP-) Five lectures on the period 175 3-1 763, on the subject 
of the exclusion of the French from North America, with refer- 
ences to Bancroft, Bryant and Gay, Hildreth, and Parkman. Nine 
lectures on Difificulties with the Home Government, 1 760-1 774, 
with references to Bancroft, Bryant and Gay, Hildreth, Frothing- 
ingham's Rise of the Republic, and Leckey's History of England 
in the Eighteenth Centicry. On the Revolution, 1 774-1 783 ; 
eleven lectures, with references to Bryant and Gay, Curtis' Con- 
stitution, Frothingham, Green, Lecky, and Gilman's History of the 
American People; seven lectures on the confederation, 1781- 
1787, with references to Bancroft, Curtis, Hildreth, and Mc- 
Master's //z>/^;j of the People of the United States ; on the period 
of the making of the Constitution, nine lectures, 1 786-1 789, with 
references to Bancroft, Curtis, Hildreth, Elliott's Debates, Mc- 
Master, Rive's Madison, Froth mgham, Schouler, and Von Hoist. 
This " outline " of colonial history makes a pamphlet of sixty-four 
pages, of which the selection here given makes about two pages. 
The "outline" in constitutional and political history of the 
United States for the period 1789-1861 is a pamphlet of eighty- 
two pages and represents the course for the first half of the pres- 
ent year. ]Q\\w^ori'^ Politics is the required text, but the student 
is advised to own one of the following sets : Von Hoist, 5 vols. ; 
American States^nen, 14 vols. ; Schouler's History, 3 vols. ; Hil- 
dretJi, second series, 3 vols. ; Greeley's American Conflict, Vol. I. 
These outlines, which are protected by copyright, are about to be 
published by the author in more complete form, and their useful- 
ness will insure them wide adoption in this country. It is such 
an outline that is needed in the private library of the lawyer and 



( i6) 

by every other student of American affairs. Dr. Hart has simply 
given us a digest of accessible authorities in the domain of 
American history. These authorities may be summed as follows : 
Personal reminiscences, such as letters, the works of statesmen, 
memoirs, and autobiographies. Unconscious authorities, such 
as travels, general literature, magazines, newspapers, and the 
publications of societies. Constitutional treatises, such as com- 
mentaries on the constitution and criticisms by Americans and 
by foreigners ; local histories, special histories, such as financial, 
military, political, literary, and economic histories ; compilations, 
such as manuals and text-books ; geographies, the census reports, 
and formal treatises of a sociological nature ; official records of 
government, journals of legislative bodies, annals, debates, and 
records of Congress ; public documents, congressional reports, 
American state papers, department publications ; legal reports 
of decisions handed down both in the state and in the federal 
courts ; laws of the states and of the United States. 

At the University of Wisconsin American History and Eco- 
nomics together are given two hours a week of the twelve hours 
given to all the history taken. There are no set lectures ; the 
juniors take the subject as a required study ; there is no provision 
for advanced historical work in fellowships or in special scholar- 
ships ; the seminary methods are not in operation as such, but 
the classes are instructed in that method to •' some extent." It 
is the opinion at Wisconsin that the preparatory schools do pre- 
pare students as well in American History as in Latin or math- 
ematics. The use of original authorities, which are accessible, 
is recommended. 

At the University of Michigyn the course in American History 
is as follows : First semester, — constitutional history of the United 
States, two hours a week ; American constitutional law, one hour 
a week ; taxation (Economic History), two hours a week. Second 
semester, — Historical seminary, two hours a week ; constitutional 
history and constitutional law of the United States, two hours 
a week. Total for the year, four and one-half hours a week 
through the year. There are no fellowships in history, nor special 
scholarships for students in history. " The greater part of our 
historical work," says Professor Hudson, "is done by lectures. 
In some lecture courses a short time is taken up each hour in 
questioning students upon the preceding lecture ; in others, an 



(17) 

hour a week is devoted to questioning students on the lectures 
of the week, or upon lectures and text-books." Critical use is 
made of original documents, which are freely accessible to his- 
torical students. It was at Michigan that the Historical Seminary- 
was first introduced in this country by Professor, now President 
C. K. Adams, of Cornell University. The principal text-book at 
Michigan is Voji Hoist, and in this place it is proper to mention 
that Von Hoist dedicates his great work to Judge Cooley, now 
professor of history at Michigan. 

It is the opinion at Michigan that the teaching of American 
history in preparatory schools is no doubt inferior to the instruc- 
tion in Latin and mathematics; but the prospect of improvement 
in this preparatory work is encouraging. Cambridge, Phila- 
delphia, New York, and Baltimore afford peculiar facilities for 
the study of American history. In the various libraries in these 
cities may be found the greater part of the authorities here out- 
lined. It cannot be said that at the present time any one of the 
universities in the country offers exclusive privileges in Amer- 
ican history because not one of them is fully equipped in that 
department. Such an equipment would place in the library of 
the University all the authorities needed in the prosecution of 
the work. Those authorities would fully set forth the life of the 
nation politically and economically. Our history is not in Con- 
gress alone ; that is, indeed, a very small part of it. Our dis- 
coveries, our inventions, our agrarian interests, our settlements 
westward, our educational affairs, the work of the church, the 
organization of charities, the growth of corporations, the conflict 
of races and for races, at times in our history, are all sources for 
research ; but in addition to an exhaustive library is needed 
the man who can and will use it ; he may be teacher or the 
taught; if the teacher, then one who by long training has pre- 
pared himself for the task; if the taught, then he who is in- 
spired with the love of country, of American institutions, and 
above all, of truth, however it must change accepted notions. 
An adequate foundation for the prosecution of studies in Amer- 
ican institutions can alone be made at the University. It is not 
called for in schools below that rank. History becomes a tech- 
nical study, and it must be pursued as such. The course in our 
higher institutions must accommodate two classes of students, — 
those who intend to make special study of history and those who 



( i8) 

pursue it as a portion of that liberal course for the training for 
citizenship. The universities must make provision for the train- 
ing of teachers and for the training of those who are not to be 
come teachers of history. The respective courses for these two 
classes must differ from each other. 

The Johns Hopkins University may claim the historic honor 
of perfecting the seminary method of research in American his- 
tory. That is now the method in each of the leading universities 
in the country. It is essentially the methods of biology applied 
to history. From this it has followed that history as a univer- 
sity study has had in our day its renaissance in this country. 
In providing a course in American History in the lower schools 
chief attention must be given to the study of our economic his- 
tory. Of the text-books now used in these schools, that by John- 
ston, called TJie History of the United States, is by far the best. 
It is the opinion of the professors of history at Columbia, Cornell, 
and Pennsylvania, that all instruction in American History for 
those intending to enter college should be omitted in the common 
schools. The professors at Harvard and at Johns Hopkins favor 
the retaining of the study in these schools for all. It cannot be 
doubted that careful training in Johnston's Outlines, or its equiv- 
alent, v/ould be a gain for those colleges which have courses in 
American History ; such training in the preparatory school would 
save at least one year at college and would be a fit introduction 
to the extended college course. At present in more than two 
hundred and fifty of the colleges and universities of the country 
American History is only a one-term study, introduced in order 
to give the seniors an opportunity to read the Constitution of the 
United States in connection with a course of lectures upon that 
subject The universities which offer courses in American His- 
tory differ widely in the amount offered ; for instance, Harvard 
offers in all history twenty-four hours a week, of which at least 
eleven are in American history ; Pennsylvania offers twenty- 
three hours in all history, of which nineteen are for the study of 
American institutions ; and Wisconsin offers twelve hours in all 
history, of which two are in American institutions. 

The maximum of opportunity for studying American institu- 
tions is at present to be found at Harvard, Pennsylvania, Johns 
Hopkins, Columbia, and Cornell. Three hours a week for three 
years is the time devoted to American history at Harvard ; and 



(19) 

when the rosters of the colleges of the country are read, it will 
be found that the minimum, and the prevailing course, is for one 
term two hours a week, or for three months. 

The present status of this study for undergraduates in Amer- 
ican schools is not high. The public schools, conducted at great 
cost, in many sections of the country, do almost nothing in teaching 
American history. In the colleges this subject is attached somewhat 
curiously to other studies. Thus we find history and Latin, history 
and mathematics history and literature, history and a modern lan- 
guage, history and one of the sciences taught by the same profes 
sor. It is evident that the best work in the department of history 
is to be expected only when that department is under the direc- 
tion ot a trained mind. It must have a recognized place among 
the departments. So long as history has not attained this place 
in our educational institutions, it is premature to ask that history 
ifself should be subdivided into its own departments. For the 
present, and perhaps for many years to come, it is only the 
larger and richer universities that will endow chairs of American 
history. The other colleges will doubtless unite history and 
political science into one department. But as the country 
increases in wealth the friends of university education will found 
chairs of American history. In that direction lies the future of 
our educational courses to this extent, that all the training for 
citizenship that can be obtained at college must be found in this 
department. This is its just claim for introduction as a college 
course, that it trains for intelligent citizenship Not that we do 
not have such a citizenship, in part, now ; but of our ten millions 
of voters, how small the number who are qualified to fill the 
offices to which they elect others. That is an ideal citizenship 
that can fill any office within its own gift. A man should be 
able to take upon himself the duties of any office to which he 
elects another. This, the work of the undergraduate course, 
should be offered by everv American college. Now that we 
are at last, in our own judgment, a nation, we cannot escape, 
any more than we have escaped the responsibilities of nation- 
ality. We are a problem unto ourselves. Life is no longer a 
colonial existence. Our national difficulties are quite like those 
of other nations. We have land and labor questions to solve, 
and that quickly. We have questions of race and of race privi 
lege of great magnitude. Shall the nation educate the nation's 



(20) 

own ? Shall the nation put the great corporations under federal 
control ? Does the right to regulate inter-state commerce reach 
so far as this? We, a nation, inherit both good and evil ; and if 
we let the evil prevail, then " after us the deluge." 

For the technical training in history there is needed in our 
universities both scholarships and fellowships, the income of 
which will permit men of special aptitude to pursue advanced 
studies. Technical work in American institutions must proceed 
like technical work in law or in medicine. There are at present 
about fifty fellowships at American universities. In the effort to 
introduce a reform in the study of American institutions, the 
work must begin in the higher schools and work down into 
the lower. All reforms have proceeded in that way. When the 
universities can offer advanced courses in such subjects as Amer- 
ican history and economics, then the undergraduate courses will 
be of relative value and extent. 

In the training for teaching history we cannot base our work 
upon American institutions as our leading study. American 
history is only the part of a whole. It cannot be made to take 
the place of the history of Europe, As a subject for philosoph- 
ical investigation, American history cannot yet compare with 
that of Greece or Rome. It is from those nations that have run 
a course, that have completed a' system, that we must obtain our 
philosophy of history ; and our own history can be made only to 
supplement the teachings of that philosophy. Therefore, the 
technical student of history must study the world as the nation 
of nations, and view citizenship from the vantage ground of the 
universal citizen. He must rise to that moral elevation that he 
ran see man brother to man, and his interests, not as those of 
the American nor of the Roman, but as of man himself. The 
history of American institutions has its beginnings far up toward 
the sources of the stream of time. The end of historical inves- 
tigation that purposes to give the power to direct others to 
understand their institutions from a national point of view, is to 
see man in his ultimate interests as man, and yet to view him as 
an individual and simple factor in the moral force of the world. 
Thus the study of history at the university requires for the best 
results such an equipment of the historical department as not 
one of our universities can, at present, give. But we are 
moving toward this consummation ; and in the universities whose 



(21) 

courses we have attempted to ouiline, so far as they are in Amer- 
ican institutions, will certainly be found, in time, ample provision 
for the prosecution of history as a science. At the present time 
Harvard affords the 9"reatest opportunities in this direction of 
any of the universities in the country. But the privileges at 
these respective seats of learning are not equal, and each has 
opportunities and facilities which the other does not offer. The 
student must know what he wants before he can select the uni- 
versity at which to pursue historical studies. 

From this brief review of the status of the study of American 
history in our schools, at the present time, we conclude : 

The course of study in the public schools should afford and 
require the study of American institutions for at least one-fourth 
of the time the child is in school. Political history, as such, 
should be made subordinate to economic and social history. The 
aim of the instruction should be to acquaint the child with accu- 
rate knowledge of the nature of American citizenship and of the 
duties he must assume as a part of the state. The instruction 
should develop in the child's mind the historic growth of the 
nation. 

In the public schools should be special teachers of American 
History and Economics. The colleges and the normal schools 
should train such teachers. 

The text-books in the public schools should treat chiefly of the 
history of the United States so far as they treat of American 
history. The nation should be the great theme. There should 
be accessible in these schools a selection of historical material, — 
documents, treatises, reports, reviews, maps, newspapers, books 
of travel, — economic material, for the use of teachers and 
students. 

Every college should offer an undergraduate course in Amer- 
ican History and Economics of at least two years, three hours a 
week. The work outlined at Harvard and at Pennsylvania may 
be taken as indicative of what the work should be in method and 
treatment. 

The great universities of the country should afford opportuni- 
nities for the technical study of American history. They 
should offer a limited number of scholarships and fellowships 
for the benefit of any who are qualified and desire to make tech- 
nical study of our own institutions, and who otherwise are unable 



(22) 

to pursue such investigations. It is to the great universities of 
the land that we must look for courses in the philosophy of his- 
tory, and in all history. 

It is in justice to the nation that the youth of our land become 
familiar with the story of popular government in this Western 
world. It is from such careful study of our own institutions 
that we may understand the nature of our national life, may 
learn the sacrifice by which it has been sustained, may learn the 
watchful care by which it can be sustained, and, above all, learn 
to avoid the commission of those errors which have, of old, 
proven the rocks upon which nations may be wrecked. 



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